Despite me participating in this thread, I just realised - didn't we have this same troll post on the old forum, about the middle of August???

Quote The Living Exile:

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Any idea why I might buy a program in the first place? {Other than to fiddle with the buttons and admire the cool, sleek interface?}

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erm, because maybe it would enable you to make music you've always wanted to make but never could? maybe it would let you do things you never realised were even possible?

i'm not saying that you need software, but plenty of people making very good music do. i don't think its particuarly constructive to post on a thread saying that you think software is overpriced when you don't want to use it yourself?

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free psytrance is good! www.monkeylogic.co.uk

Quote milan:

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or even 429 £ for cubase sx

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With ONE Cubase, you can make hundreds of pop/jazz/rock etc cds that cost 10£ each. With one jazz/pop/rock cd, you can't make Cubase...

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no you dont! with 429 and one Cubase all you get is a box with a CD and few books inside. You also need to spent another 3000 quid at least to make this Cubase thingy actually do something. and still, even if you spent another 3000 quid, you are just beggining to get somewhere, since you will also need to spent another goos 2-3 years learnign what ya got, spending a few more money on gear, and once you have done that... you need to spent a bit more.

then we come to my argument:

music software is way overpriced. way way waaaayyy overpriced. with the exception of a few programms (eg traction) all the other progrs and mainly VSTs are overpriced, when one considers that the amount of actuall programming and effort that goes to them is very little.

I am not a hardware buff, my DAW is mainly software (Cubase SE, KOrg legacy, few free VSTs, Reason, Ozone, ESI-near 5 monitors).

this whole lot, with a decent laptop costs 2000 quid. now think what you can get for 2000 quid: Motif ES 6 (1200 quid) the ESI monitors (£120), CD-burner (£50) you save £700 for anything really. with the second setup(my mates setup), comparing to the one I have, you ge much much much much beter results on any type of music with little fuss, no crashes, no worries, no latencies, no upgrades. the Motif sequencer is great (or can get the Triton extreme for a few quid more). damn, Logic 7 costs as much as a Triton LE!!! and its just a couple of worthless CD, unless you have another £3000 to spent to use it!!!

I hope you see my point.

Quote evilwill:

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Quote The Living Exile:

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Any idea why I might buy a program in the first place? {Other than to fiddle with the buttons and admire the cool, sleek interface?}

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erm, because maybe it would enable you to make music

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Yeah. Software is sometimes a tool with which to make music. If I didn't value the music... I'd not need the software.

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www.RTaylor-Design.Com

it's funny when people take their belief and state them as an absolute and undisputable fact..

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vember|audio HQ

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no you dont! with 429 and one Cubase all you get is a box with a CD and few books inside. You also need to spent another 3000 quid at least to make this Cubase thingy actually do something. and still, even if you spent another 3000 quid, you are just beggining to get somewhere,

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RedRum, this is "muRdeR" you need to shop around. There is no way you need to spend that kind of money to get a functioning virtual studio. Cubase will perform straight out of the box. Fact.

If you make music with "real" instruments you don't need anything else except hardware. (i.e. computer, soundcard and essential gear like mics that are an inevitable expense whatever solution you opt for and so can be disregarded)

If you use a lot of softsynths and plugins well there's a lot of free stuff out there, and it is possible to make good music using this stuff. You can't gripe about spending loads of cash if you single out expensive solutions in each category.

Also, the computer/software route will yield far more tracks per unit cost than any hardware solution.

Today's price at digital village (UK) for the roland vs 2480dvd is £3354.99

Thats for 24 tracks of audio.

You can get a P4 or athlon 64 with a big hard drive and a dvd writer for under £1000 without even looking hard.

add to this £500 for an 8x8 soundcard.

Your price for Cubase, £429.

How many audio tracks will that lot yield? 50? 100?

Per track cost for the computer/cubase solution could be up to a quarter of that of a dedicated hardware solution.

Save even more money and build your own system.

Your argument is flawed because not only do you want low prices you want high profile branded versions. There are plenty of alternatives.

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you will also need to spent another goos 2-3 years learnign what ya got, spending a few more money on gear, and once you have done that... you need to spent a bit more.

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It might take you 2 years if you'd never touched a computer before or if you were a moron. Cubase ain't easy to use, but the basic functionality of laying down tracks & playback ain't hard. Many people confuse learning the software with learning the craft of recording and mixing. Two very different beasts. Oh, and what's all this extra money being spent on?

That said,

I lean towards the opinion that the trade of intellectual property like software, music, films or anything that is distrubuted via some other medium (i.e. cd, dvd, internet, satellite broadcast etc.) is wide open for profiteering. You only have to look at the insane pricing schemes that many record labels are tryng to impose for on line music distribution (UK - 99p per track for badly coded low bitrate mp3).

The issue of software pricing is too complicated to come up with simple, glib answer. Nobody knows for sure what steinbergs development costs for Cubase are so you can't attack or defend the argument on that basis. Its funny that more people have mentioned "development costs" than "marketing costs". Most high profile "brand leaders" spend a lot on advertising, then pass this cost on to the consumer. In an argument about pricing this is a far more contentious issue than citing development costs.

But, as i said above, if you want "designer label" gear expect to pay "designer label" prices.

Quote Harry_Speakup:

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It might take you 2 years if you'd never touched a computer before or if you were a moron. Cubase ain't easy to use, but the basic functionality of laying down tracks & playback ain't hard. Many people confuse learning the software with learning the craft of recording and mixing. Two very different beasts. Oh, and what's all this extra money being spent on?

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:} Writing music, writing "good" music, writing good music that expresses what you want to say... learning to do it well...

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www.RTaylor-Design.Com

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music software is way overpriced. way way waaaayyy overpriced. with the exception of a few programms (eg traction) all the other progrs and mainly VSTs are overpriced, when one considers that the amount of actuall programming and effort that goes to them is very little

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If you can do better, then go ahead. Come up with a software equal (or better) than Cubase, Logic, etc, and give it away for less money, everybody here would be happier.
If not, then just use freeware and shareware, there's a lot of it outhere.

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you're paying more for software at this end of the market because people writing this software are probably trying to run a small compay and live off the profit, whereas people writing music that they don't expect to sell much of are probably doing it as a (maybe very serious) hobby.

my idealistic view is music is art, and people making art should be doing it for the love of their art rather than to make profit!

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Unbelievable.... this was essential the reason why i posted this ....(by the way ....what a mass of reactions ...)

Why should musicians or composers in the first place earn less than some ( not all of course) silly game developpers who make ugly games only for their own profit in the first place....only that this is business and music is art...

There's nothing wrong with making money but in many cases it are the musicians who have to deal with louzy contracts, minimal payments ....and doing it all for ....yes for what ....in belgium you even get nothing for a performance on tv .... you should already be thankfull that you are on tv and get publicity ...is the explanation

I think there is nobody in the software industry who would like to sign a contract at the same terms as used in the record industrie...

The arguement that it takes years to develop software ...
well they are so clever to count every hour they spend
at their work ......

I wonder what should cost a cd from lets say Allan Holdsworth

http://www.therealallanholdsworth.com

if he should counting all his hours of developping, composing, rehearsing ...

....by the way...i think also that some vst developers could learn a lot of what is Holdworth doing (probably underpaid )with sound ...


regards and (only) make great music

Quote red zebra:

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my idealistic view is music is art, and people making art should be doing it for the love of their art rather than to make profit!

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Unbelievable.... this was essential the reason why i posted this ....(by the way ....what a mass of reactions ...)

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That is the main reason that I like GNU stuff and shareware stuff so much. It's not some ridiculous, cold, money grubbing corporate entity... it's people. {No reference to Soylent Green intended.} I love the readmes that come with the stuff.

I like buying shareware... it makes me feel good. It's like I'm contributing to one of my ideals {Anarchosyndicalism}. ...Like I'm helping move the world to a better place.

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Why should musicians or composers in the first place earn less than some ( not all of course) silly game developpers who make ugly games only for their own profit in the first place....only that this is business and music is art...

There's nothing wrong with making money but in many cases it are the musicians who have to deal with louzy contracts, minimal payments ....and doing it all for ....yes for what ....in belgium you even get nothing for a performance on tv .... you should already be thankfull that you are on tv and get publicity ...is the explanation

I think there is nobody in the software industry who would like to sign a contract at the same terms as used in the record industrie...

The arguement that it takes years to develop software ...
well they are so clever to count every hour they spend
at their work ......

I wonder what should cost a cd from lets say Allan Holdsworth

http://www.therealallanholdsworth.com

if he should counting all his hours of developping, composing, rehearsing ...

....by the way...i think also that some vst developers could learn a lot of what is Holdworth doing (probably underpaid )with sound ...


regards and (only) make great music

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I was in a pricey restaurant a while back and there was this old black guy in the restroom handing out towels to folk. {I do hope no one's offended by "black"}

Anyway he was doing this for tips and was all dressed up in some massively silly and humiliating uniform and you could just see a whole lifetime's worth of pain in his eyes. I didn't have any cash with me... I felt like a jerk not tipping him.

As I walked out of the restroom... all I could think of is "I wonder what band he used to be in." You could see that in his eyes too.


{Addendum: After thinking about it for a while... I think I'd much rather be that guy than any businessman I've ever met.}

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www.RTaylor-Design.Com

Harry Speakup, I disagree with you.

Yes you can make music with some cheap products but can you make true, "quality" music ?? If you could then I doubt many of us would be buying this "overpriced" software.

The expensive products gives you things like extra functionality, connectivity, ease of use (in some cases), seamless integration and scalability. There are other things which you can't get by buying cheaper products.

Show me a professional studio running cheap products and/or shareware products where the technician/engineer knows these products inside out and can make equal quality music.

Like I said, you can make music with cheap products. I made a track with a £69.99 Casio keyboard that had a midi connector years ago - but it was crap music. I suppose it depends on the scenario, who will be using it, what the music is for etc. In some cases cheap products are more than adequate - I will agree with you there.

I think a lot of plug ins get released and sent out to the public for the £150 mark because they think that is an acceptable figure - its one that seems common anyway. But when you think about exactly what that plug in is giving you, I often feel "not much" really.

On the other hand there are some priced above £250 and you can really see what your money went on. If I can buy Logic that comes with plug ins anyway for, I dunno, £500, why should I be expected to pay £150 for an average plug in - 3 of which would cost as much as Logic !!!

On top of that, building a PC yourself is extremely difficult. If you take off your "I understand how PCs work/are put together" hat, most people would not have a clue how to put one together - the average Joe would not know.

Yeah you can pay some cowboy half the price to put something together for you, but if I am gonna spend £700 or upwards, I wanna know the thing will not let me down and said cowboy does not do a runner. I can totally understand why someone would spend £1500 - £2000 on a PC built then supported by experienced professionals. Overpriced ? Hell yeah - but what can you do ?? I know PCs so for me its no biggie but not everyone is comfortable with computers.

I found getting to grips with Cubase a pain, with no prior experience of music technology - although I was creative and could read music, I found the whole midi sequencer thing tough going. Its only after a lot of reading and some courses I learned shortcuts, techniques etc. If it is NOT your job it is very reasonable to say 2-3 years before you know what you are doing.

I do understand the points you were making though.

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"Don't start nuttin - won't be nuttin !"

Edited by Mr Venjer (22/10/04 12:17 PM)

Quote Mr Venjer:

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Harry Speakup, I disagree with you.

Yes you can make music with some cheap products but can you make true, "quality" music ?? If you could then I doubt many of us would be buying this "overpriced" software.

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You {and I} buy it because you think that more expensive stuff is better... Which is sort of logical.

Where people got the inane idea that corporate stuff is always better from is something that evades me. I'm a fine artist... commercial stuff has always struck me as cheap and plastic and not even close to artists quality. That's why I used to pay $90.oo a tube for some colors.

Software is much like most artforms in that one person can do it... take their time and do it right. I think there's a lot of talent involved... a lot of hard work, research, practice and expense. Just like the fine arts.

Seeing as it's a newish artform it's not really had a chance to build legends like Michelangelo or Davinci or Charlie Parker... folk don't quite see it in the same terms yet and it doesn't really have that "time filter" that makes a lot of things great. I think it probably needs it's Romantics like Rimbaud and Baudillaire as well.

I don't think anyone's really had the time to develop something like the Sistine Chapel yet either. I don't think software's been around that long. :} Emacs is coming close but that's been the effort of a whole world.

http://zynaddsubfx.sourceforge.net/

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The expensive products gives you things like extra functionality, connectivity, ease of use (in some cases), seamless integration and scalability. There are other things which you can't get by buying cheaper products.

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But, I really don't see how much of that relates to the arts. Maybe like those hobby shops that sell supplies that you can paint ducks on your cupboards with or something...

http://www.emacs.org/

Software is basically a big ball of text that someone has wadded up. It doesn't take a corporation to write good stuff...just like it doesn't take a corporation to write a novel... or a sonnet. Doesn't have to be big to be good.

http://www.virtualdub.org/

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Show me a professional studio running cheap products and/or shareware products where the technician/engineer knows these products inside out and can make equal quality music.

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http://www.linuxmusician.com/

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Like I said, you can make music with cheap products. I made a track with a £69.99 Casio keyboard that had a midi connector years ago - but it was crap music. I suppose it depends on the scenario, who will be using it, what the music is for etc. In some cases cheap products are more than adequate - I will agree with you there.

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I've heard some absolutely incredible stuff done with a cheap acoustic guitar.

http://www.kvr-vst.com/

http://www.linux.org/

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www.RTaylor-Design.Com

I have an idea - how about a proper Windows PC music forum? I mean, there's Mac music forum, Linux music forum, Atari music forum...? Like this, we always come back to the old Win vs Mac vs Linux vs I-don't-know-what rants. And the other thing is that I don't think that this discussion belongs here (PC Music). It's about software and it's price, so it would be better fitted to Music recording in general, or similar (business maybe?). Or maybe it was just about PC software? I wanted to mention this before, but I never got around it, so I'm saying it now. Any views from the moderators would be welcomed...

Sorry I'm being dumb, probably, but you are posting in the PC Music forum? Isn't this what you ask for?

'PC' is almost synonymous with Windows these days.

Ian G

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SOS Gear Videos now screening on www.SoundOnSound.tv
SOS Podcasts

Sorry if I've been a bit inprecise, my english is not THAT good, but I'm trying
I'll try to explain myself better.

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'PC' is almost synonymous with Windows these days.

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I completely agree, so that's exactly what I was saying - if it goes without saying that 'PC forum' stands for 'Windows PC forum', why is there almost always some 'pushy' Linux answer/link/comparison? I mean, if somebody has a problem (or question in general) with Win, is it constructive to mention/suggest how Linux has it for free for the last xy years, etc? Does it mean that everytime someone wants to post/ask something on this forum, he has to ask politely to stay on the Win subject?
For example, if this thread (expensive software) is posted here, is it about how PC Windows software is expensive? If it is, is there a point then emphasizing how Linux is cheap, good alternative, etc? Or, if it was a question about software in general, wouldn't it be better to put it on some 'larger' discussion group, like Music technology?
Personally, I don't really care about stuff like this, if someone wants to post a topic with his/her sound files in PC music forum, or asks business questions in Music recording technology, that's fine with me, I'll open it, read it, and reply if I have something to say, if not, i just won't pay any attention to it - but - since moderation is, how should I say, more present than on previous version of forums, wouldn't it be better to make it more clear that PC forum means Windows forum, since other PC platforms have their dedicated space? Just an idea, nothing more.
I hope I was more understandable this time

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but you are posting in the PC Music forum? Isn't this what you ask for?

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Errr, not sure what are you asking me? I am posting at PC forum, but I'm not really asking *for* anything - I was just mentioning a few things.

Quote The Living Exile:

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Quote Mr Venjer:

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Where people got the inane idea that corporate stuff is always better from is something that evades me.

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I think people get that idea because the corporate/media world in general feeds it to them. It's why people who disagree with stuff in the media get called 'black helicopter conspiracy theorists' just because they don't toe the official line on things. Most music software sound absolutely fine. I use Alsihad myself, for the very specific reasons that a) it works great for me and b) I can afford it. None of that bull about summing busses and stuff moves me, I'm a music maker and I use a tool that doesn't get in my way. End of story - there's more important stuff out there, such as democratically elected (except the US) heads of state invading other countries illegally. I expect that's enough to get my post deleted!! Only joking, but if you want a conversation about that sort of thing, join us in the Open Mic Forum on SOS...



Edited by Jon Dickinson (22/10/04 09:46 PM)

Quote milan:

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For example, if this thread (expensive software) is posted here, is it about how PC Windows software is expensive?

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The above mentioned is windows software. The two linux examples are appropriate to the questions.

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If it is, is there a point then emphasizing how Linux is cheap, good alternative, etc?

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If the question asked is "are the good, cheap alternatives"... you tell me.

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www.RTaylor-Design.Com

Quote Jon Dickinson:

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Quote The Living Exile:

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Quote Mr Venjer:

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Where people got the inane idea that corporate stuff is always better from is something that evades me.

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I think people get that idea because the corporate/media world in general feeds it to them. It's why people who disagree with stuff in the media get called 'black helicopter conspiracy theorists'

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I just did a search on this... all that came up was actual definitions. I could have sworn that was the name of a band as well. {I must be confusing it with the "Black Rebel Motorcycle Club."}

I suppose it benefits them to "keep all of the little pocket-liners in tow."

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just because they don't toe the official line on things. Most music software sound absolutely fine. I use Alsihad myself, for the very specific reasons that a) it works great for me and b) I can afford it. None of that bull about summing busses and stuff moves me, I'm a music maker and I use a tool that doesn't get in my way. End of story -

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Ok. I use Avid Xpress and will probably add Pro-tools le when I can afford it. If I could afford it I'd be running Symphony. I like the products. I like zynaddsubfx too. There's no real reason that you can't run both. I think that's specifically stated in the rules somewhere. {"You can use either or both or the two in conjunction."}

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there's more important stuff out there, such as democratically elected (except the US) heads of state invading other countries illegally. I expect that's enough to get my post deleted!! Only joking, but if you want a conversation about that sort of thing, join us in the Open Mic Forum on SOS...

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That *is* the nature of war.

I might do that anyway. I didn't know it was there.

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www.RTaylor-Design.Com